Fintech Startup Weekend Zurich – And the winner is….

The Fintech Startup Weekend Zurich was incredible. We had more than 70 participants, 18 fintech ideas pitched and eventually 12 fintech startups.

We opened the ceremony with a panel of discussion. Holger Spielberg, head of innovation at Credit Suisse discussed the importance of fintech and its challenges. We then dived deeply into a neuroscientific view of disruptive innovation and leadership with Dr. Khoris, neurologist, trainer and coach at JKH-consulting. Finally Andrew Hyde – founder of Startup Weekend and Startup Week – related how 8 years ago in Colorado he initiated the largest startup events series in the world.

The teams had then 4 minutes to pitch and 3 minutes to answer the jury’s questions.

After a long deliberation, the jury composed of Holger Spielberg, Mike Baur, Didier Sornette, Dirk Wiedmann and Michael Hartweg has selected 3 winners. Here are the results:

Our 3rd prize went to Sensorbay. The jury decided to reward them for their idea of turning private user data and location into a user revenue stream. They provoked an interesting discussion about the definition of “fintech” and its boundaries. “Finance follows closely value creation and Sensorbay is definitely creating value” explained Didier Sornette, Professor on the Chair of Entrepreneurial Risks at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. Each member of Sensorbay received a 50.- voucher to redeem at Swisscom.

3rd place – Team Sensorbay

ATMapp earned the second prize. Their ATM locator tackles the high costs when withdrawing money abroad, by indicating each ATM’s exchange rates and withdrawing fees. They won the Swiss Start Up Factory coaching prize: a 10-hour coaching provided by Mike Baur, Founder and Chairman of the Swiss Startup Factory along with 100.- Swisscom vouchers.

2nd place – Team ATMapp

And the first prize went to Crowdcrawler, a crowdfunding real-estate aggregator with added value services. They convinced the jury with their practical and well-thought concept that helps global investors to make timely and informed real estate investment decisions by aggregating and comparing crowdfunding deals. Besides the 200.- francs Swisscom vouchers, Fintech Startup Weekend offers them the “mission to London” prize: on January 11-12 they will visit the fintech ecosystem in London and attend the London Blockchain conference.

Winners – team Crowdcrawler

Last but not least, Unter got the public recognition with their commoditized service exchange.

We wish there were more prices to reward and encourage the excellent presentations and ideas we saw on Sunday.

A big round of applause to the jury and the coaches that came to support our teams with coaching and advises!